MPDD Seminar Series on “Is there a path to inclusive and low carbon growth?” by Clovis Freire, Macroeconomic Policy and Development, ESCAP
Poverty eradication and climate change are two of the greatest challenges facing the world today. The dilemma is how to reconcile the need to reduce carbon emissions to mitigate climate change with the need to eliminate income poverty through economic growth, which in its turn increases emissions.
This seminar examines whether it is possible for developing countries to achieve inclusive and low carbon growth through the emulation of more productive and low carbon sectors of developed economies. It presents the results of a paper that was prepared for the ESCAP Survey 2012 and was presented at the 11th Globelics International Conference on "Entre- preneurship, innovation policy and development in an era of increased globalisation", in Ankara, Turkey, in September 2013.
It finds that there is no absolute decoupling of carbon emission from growth. The results suggest that an inclusive and low carbon growth path would only exist if more diversified economies focus on low carbon innovation and less diversified economies are given the policy space to emulate the production of the former, regardless of the carbon footprint.
Clovis Freire is Economic Affairs Officer at the Macroeconomic Policy and Development Division of ESCAP. His research interests covers the assessment of impact of economic shocks on poverty and the achievement of the MDGs, risk of social and economic impact of disasters, and strategies for building the productive capacity of developing countries.